


Penance

by Queenbee3480



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:15:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25941208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queenbee3480/pseuds/Queenbee3480
Summary: In the Underworld, Emma and Regina finally discuss a long standing ghost in their friendship.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	Penance

**Author's Note:**

> Regina is my favorite character, but I feel like she was done a disservice by not including any mention of Graham in her redemption story. This one shot is my attempt at addressing that. Includes references to past violence and rape.

“I thought I might find you here.”

Regina started; her thoughts pulled from the silent conversation she had been trying to have. Talking to a ghost was hard enough, but talking to a ghost whose death and misery you were personally responsible for was infinitely harder.

She tried out a smile as Emma approached her, stopping to look at Graham’s gravestone. “What are you doing here?”

“I was looking for you. You looked upset after the conversation with your father and I was worried about you.”

Regina nodded. She should have known her feelings would have been obvious to the Savior. She had long since given up trying to fool the woman. It simply wasn’t possible.

“After I earned my father’s forgiveness, I thought….I don’t know.”

“You thought you would talk to Graham, see if he forgave you as well.”

Regina didn’t answer. She had wronged her father in the worst way possible and while looking him in the eyes to apologize had been incredibly difficult, part of her knew he loved her and would forgive her. He was special that way.

Graham was a different story altogether.

Emma didn’t wait for a response. She knew Regina well enough to know that pushing her to talk before she was ready was pointless. Instead she turned back to the gravestone, noting its upright position. “Hard to believe he didn’t have regrets, isn’t it?”

“Not really. You can’t regret decisions you were not responsible for making”

_Ahh, there it was._

“Yeah, I guess that’s true. So what’s the plan here? You just gonna sit here until you die? Or do you want me to find you a hair shirt to put on as penance or something?”

Regina stared at her, best Evil Queen glare on display. Emma just laughed, though the smile soon disappeared when she noticed that Regina’s dark expression was not fading.

“You want to talk about it?”

There was no response and Emma was about to give up and leave Regina to her thoughts when she spoke. “I just can’t believe I did it.”

“You’ve done a lot of things, Regina. Maybe it’s time to move on from them.”

Regina shook her head, her dark hair waving wildly in the wind. “No. Don’t dismiss this. This is different.” She sank down to her knees, as though her legs were unable to hold her up any longer.

Emma knelt down beside her, reaching out to touch the mayor’s shoulder. The touch was tentative, and it held compassion and Regina couldn’t bear it, so she shook it off.

“Regina, you don’t need to talk about this,” she began, but her voice trailed off when Regina shook her head again.

“No. I need to say this out loud. And since he’s not here to say it to, I need to say it to someone that cared about him, ok?”

Emma wanted to protest but when she saw the desperation in her friend’s eyes, she sat down in front of the grave and gently pulled the brunette to a sitting position as well. “Ok.”

Now that she had the Savior’s attention, Regina no longer knew where to start. She thought back to plunging her hand into the huntsman’s chest and pulling out his heart. She saw herself clearly, laughing and ordering the Black Knights to take him to her bedchamber. Bile rose in her throat as she remembered the things she had done to him that night and so many nights after. Gasping, she turned from the Savior, dry heaving and choking.

Instantly Emma was on her knees beside her, holding her hair and rubbing her back. Catching her breath, Regina sat back down and with her eyes firmly on the ground began to speak.

The words came slowly at first, then faster and faster, as though the dam had burst. She described how she had used the huntsman to hunt down Snow White and when he deceived her, she had punished him in ways so much worse than death. She spoke of the nights she had searched for satisfaction in his arms and the emptiness it always left her feeling when it was done.

“I took away his ability to consent, Emma.”

“I know.” But she also knew Regina wasn’t done.

A moment, then: “I…I raped him.”

Everything in Emma rebelled against the statement. She wanted desperately to protest, to soothe, but she held back, offering nothing but her silence.

“I raped him, over and over and then I killed him.”

Again, the instinct to deny what was right in front of her rose inside of Emma. She knew the truth of what Regina was saying, knew she had done some unforgivable things, but could not reconcile it with the broken woman in front of her. The woman she knew was so far removed from what was being presented. Even now, as she relived the worst times of her life, Regina would not allow herself to cry. She did not ask for forgiveness she knew she did not deserve. She did not rationalize or make excuses. All she asked for was for someone to listen as she put the words out there into the world, making them real.

Instead of offering platitudes or understanding she did not possess, Emma used the opportunity to ask a question she had been wondering about for years.

“Regina…” her voice trailed off, unsure how to phrase the question. Regina turned to her, eyes unfocused and she tried again.

“Regina….did you kill him because I got too close to him? Because I was taking something that belonged to you?”

A short bitter laugh sprang from the mayor as she thought back to Emma’s arrival in Storybrooke. She remembered jade eyes that snapped when she got in her face and hair that had tumbled down broad shoulders in careless waves. Mostly she remembered feeling alive in a way that she hadn’t in decades.

Leave it to the Savior to be so clueless.

But it was better this way. Let her believe Regina killed him out of possessiveness, rather than the petty jealousy that had risen in her when she saw those jade eyes sparkle at someone else.

Yes, it was better this way. And if she was tormented by longing night after night for the rest of her life, perhaps her refusal to give in to temptation would serve as a small measure of penance.

Her thoughts were interrupted once more.

“Regina….ask me to go home with you right now and I will.”

Perhaps the Savior was not as clueless as she had believed.

Regina searched her eyes, seeing the truth in them. She fought the desperation to pull the blonde to her and let herself accept the forgiveness she knew was not really Emma’s to give.

“Go find your pirate, Ms. Swan. I’ll be along shortly.”

Without another word Emma stood up and walked away. Once she was safely out of sight, Regina allowed herself the tears that had been threatening to spill since she arrived at the grave. When they finally stopped coming, she stood up to help Emma Swan find happiness that did not involve her.

Her lifetime of penance had begun.


End file.
